Cable TV and Broadband provider Virgin Media today announced that it will be trialling a new Video On Demand player for the web and mobile devices. The service provider announced that 'hundreds of hour's of on demand content will be avaialble for the beta trail period including ITV, LIVING, Disney, Cartoon Network, National Geographic, Discovery, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.

Cindy Rose, executive director of digital entertainment at Virgin Media said: "MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon already offer some hugely popular shows on our TV on demand platform so we’re delighted to be expanding our line-up across all three screens. We continue to explore innovative new ways to bring our customers’ favourite content to them and, with Virgin Media Player, we’re making sure they’re spoilt for choice."

Virgin Media customers who subscribe to their XL TV package and who also have broadband with them will be able to try the new VOD player out from today by going to www.virginmedia.com/player and registering their details. The press release did not make it clear as to which mobile platforms will be supported but a logical guess would be iPhone and Android devices first followed by Symbian devices later on. Virgin Media plans to fully release the service later this year after the beta period.

Apple has produly announced that it has sold over 300,000 iPads on it's first day of release in the US. The iPad was revealed to the world back in Janurary after months if not years of speculation that Apple would be releasing a tablet like computing device.

The initial success of the iPad comes after an ongoing and hyped up ad campaign by Apple. The 300,000 iPads sold so far include all those that were pre-ordered on the Apple site and through channel partners. It is not clear where the most of the sales came from, but it's a good bet that Apple stores across America have been inundated with consumers wanting to get their hands on Apple's latest offering.

In addition to shifting so many iPads, Apple can also celebrate the sale of content for the device too. Over one million Apps and over 250,000 eBooks were purchased from the App Store and iBookstore respectively, making launch day for the iPad an overwhelming success for Apple.

Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO said "It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world—it’s going to be a game changer, iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad."

There is no doubt that the first few days of the iPad being out in the wild have been a good one for Apple. However competition for the iPad could quickly heat up with several promising devices planned for release soon. These include devices that run Google Android and have access to the Android market place.

Last month Apple revealed it was to bring a touch device to market which they strongly believe will offer something better than a smartphone, netbook or a laptop. It's a device to fill the voids that those devices leave in the user experience, at least that's what Apple believe. The device is something that fits between the formats. In reality the iPad is for all intents and purposes a very large iPhone without the phone features.

Today the Apple store has been updated and is now accepting pre-orders for Apple's latest and greatest. As mentioned in our previous article there are two models available both with three storage capacities on offer. Prices for the WiFi only model are, $499(16GB), $599(32GB) and $699(64GB). This model will be delivered on April 3rd, a Saturday.

The WiFi+3G enabled model costs, $629(16GB), $729(32GB) and $829(64GB) respectively. To access content via 3G will cost $14.99 per month for up to 250MB of usage or you can fork out $29.99 per month to have "unlimited" access to AT&T's network.

The 3G devices won't ship until the end of April. Orders are limited to two per person, such is demand and delivery is free. You can also reserve one at any Apple retail store for pick up on April 3rd.

All models will be available to customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Will you be buying an iPad, or can't you see anything in them. Let us know your thoughts below.

Spotify has apologised to it's users' after an outage on Saturday evening left the popular music streaming service unusable for thousands of music lovers. Spotify allows anyone to stream potentially millions of music tracks to their computers or mobile device without having to pay for the privilege. It is subsidised by periodic adverts between some tracks and from a subscription of £9.99 per month should users wish to remove the adverts and have access to other 'premium' features.

As a Spotify user myself, I found on Saturday evening that I could not connect to the service. It quickly become apparent after a quick search that the service was experiencing a major outage. It was down for several hours before coming back online later in the evening.

Today Spotify have issued a statement via their blog that says they experienced a power outage at their London data center where some of their content is hosted. Backup generators kicked in but for some reason the air conditioning in the center did not fire up properly.

With server rooms running at high temperatures, it's important to keep the systems cool, otherwise they will malfunction due to the heat. Spotify's Andres Sehr stated that, "Heat is a major issue in large data centres and without this cooling unit the temperature rose very quickly and our servers shut down to protect themselves from over heating."

Due to the complexity of their system, it look a while to fire everything up again and for things to return to normal. However everything is running as normal again and full service is restored according to Spotify; "Currently all systems are working properly - a few premium users may have some billing anomalies due to the outage but we will contact those users directly to resolve any issues.", said Sehr.

On behalf of Spotify Sehr said that having a stable and secure service is of the utmost importance to them and that they are sorry for the downtime. "We’re very sorry for the silence this caused and I can assure you that over the next few days and weeks we’ll be working to make sure that this does not happen again."

Spotify the ad supported service that streams music for free, seems to be experiencing a major outage as I type. When I tried to connect to the service about half an hour ago it would not connect to the servers. Suspicious I searched Google and quickly came across lots of other people who are also experiencing similar issues.

After some reading it quickly become obvious that the Spotify service has gone down, even the official spotify.com website is down. Whether it's because of some catastrophic hardware failure or worse a malicious attack of some sort is unclear at this time.  Spotify have stated from their community support system  that they are "currently having network problems and are working on it as fast as we can to resolve it and get online again" and that the outage is affecting all users.

The reality of a cloud based service such as Spotify going down has hit home with many thousands of people today. Now I'm going away to load up foobar for the first time in months.

UPDATE: As previously thought, the outage has been confirmed as a "big one" at their London site, and sadly is not easy to put right again. Which could suggest that it maybe down for a while. A post by a Spotify representative on their support system has stated "As you notice we are still down. I'ts a big outage (as you probably figured) and unfortunately not easily fixed. Hang in there!".

UPDATE 2: Looks like after several hours of downtime, the Spotify team have resolved the problem(s). Spotify.com and the desktop client are back up and running although they both remain temperamental.

There have been lots of happenings and announcements from Sky over the last couple of days. Firstly TechRadar.co.uk is reporting that the satellite broadcaster is to begin phasing out it's standard definition digi-boxes. Meaning all new subscribers to Sky will be offered the Sky+HD box as standard.

Sky has obviously invested millions, if not billions of pounds in HD and 3D technologies and it wants to ensure that it's customer base has access to these technologies. Providing a HD/3D capable box as standard is probably an attempt by Sky to coax more people into paying for the HD channels on offer or to make it more convenient for them to upgrade when the time is right for them.

New customers who don't want the HD channelling will have to pay £49 for the HD box plus £30 for installation according to TechRadar. Existing customers however will be subjected to the double standards syndrome that many operators seem to subject them to and will have to shell out more to get the box; £99 plus £60 for installation, ouch. New customers wanting to subscribe straight off the bat for HD channels will get the box and installation for free.

Staying with Sky the company has also announced that from today (January 28th 10) a new Sky+HD box will be available to purchase that will come fitted with a 1TB hard drive. The new box offers around four times the storage capacity of it's predecessor. The previous model was often criticised for not having enough capacity to record lots of content in HD. The price of the new box is a not so unreasonable £249.

The push of HD boxes for Sky comes as they announce Sky3D, Europe's first channel dedicated to broadcasting 3D content. The new channel will literally kick off this weekend when Sky plan preview the service in a select few pubs around the UK and Ireland when Arsenal and Man Utd meet in the Premiership. It will be the worlds first public 3D broadcast of a sporting event.

In all nine privileged pubs have been kitted out especially for the 3D broadcast and are among the first to offer 3D Ready TVs. Pubs located in London, Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Dublin will be able to offer a glimpse of the new service to their punters. Sky will then roll the 3D service out to more pubs across the country starting in April. Following this Sky will then start to roll the service out to Sky+HD customers, allowing millions to watch a "wide range of content in 3D".

Sky say their 3D service will work with all existing Sky+HD boxes and 3D ready TVs coming to market this year. Initially the new channel will come at no extra cost to those customers who subscribe to Sky's top TV and HD packages. However you will need to invest in a new 3D Ready TV, which is something the mainstream viewer may not be prepared to do after only just becoming accustomed to seeing and probably buying a 'HD Ready TV'. It could irate them somewhat.

Source: TechRadar.com

Back in October 2009 Amazon released it's popular Kindle e-book reader to the world. At the time it only offered the Kindle 2 and not it's larger sibling the Kindle DX. With 2010 looking set to be a busy year for e-book readers with the likes of Skiff, iriver and Logic One to name but a few all announcing e-book readers at CES it would seem that Amazon maybe bracing them selves for a tough year in the e-book industry after previously dominating it.

In response to this the world's largest online retailer has announced that it's going to be extending the availability of the Kindle DX to a worldwide audience, including the UK. The US has had the luxury of the 9.7 inch Kindle DX since May 2009 but with competition growing, Amazon knows it has to offer it's flagship Kindle product to the masses, which is probably one of the main reasons why at the start of CES it has announced that the Kindle DX will be made available in over 100 countries towards the end of January.

The Kindle DX features a 9.7" auto-rotating screen with 16 levels of grey and enough storage to download up to 3500 e-books compared to the Kindle 2 which caters for up to 1500 e-books. Both devices have native support for PDF files and incorporate a 60 second download times via the devices' 3G connection. The Kindle DX with global wireless is available for pre-order today from Amazon.com and will ship for $489 on January 19th.

Meaningful competition on the horizon?

With CES upon us it looks like the event will mark 2010 as the beginning of the fightback for Kindle's competition. There are many alternatives to the Kindle that are expected to make their way to market this year. With that in mind here are some of the devices we can expect to see at some point in 2010.

iriver Story

iriver is a company that has been around for a while, however the iriver Story is their first venture into the e-book business. The Story has already been launched in the UK, Germany and Korea but from this month iriver will be making the device available to US consumers.

As you can see from the pictures the Story looks very much like the Kindle 2 with its sleek no frills but clean looking design. The device is just under 1cm thick and sports a 6" e-ink display like the Kindle 2 does and is accompanied by a QWERTY keyboard and a battery life of over 100 hours which equates to approximately 9,000 page turns. The current model does not sport Wi-Fi but iriver say that a new model coming in Q2 will have Wi-Fi connectivity.

Other notable features include an office file viewer, mp3 player, voice recorder, personal organizer, memo pad and scheduler. Internal memory stands in at 2GB with the option of inserting an SD card up to 16GB in size. The internal memory will store around 1,600 e-books according to iriver. Supported formats include PDF, PPT, DOC and XLS office files and will play mp3, wma and audio book files.

As far as connections go it has a USB 2 port, headphone jack and a comic viewer mode which will allow the device to display images albeit black and white ones.

Content can be purchased from any store that uses Adobe Digital Edition as its distribution method, including CyberRead.com, FictionWise.com, ebooks.com and RandomHouse.com. As stated the iriver Story is already available in the UK for around £230 but there is no word yet on US pricing, iriver simply state that the device will be "competitively priced" and that they are currently in talks with newspapers, magazines and other publishers to bring more content to the device.

iriver.com (Flash heavy)

Plastic Logic QUE proReader

Plastic Logic are a UK company that are hoping to make a name for them selves this year by offering an e-reader that's aimed at business people as well as your average Joe wanting the next best novel.

As such the device will have support for a range of formats including ePub, TXT, PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint as well as being able to access newspapers, periodicals, ebooks and other file types. What's more the company says that transferring content between your computer or BlackBerry OS 4.5.0 or higher smartphone will be a breeze.

Plastic Logic are also working in partnership with Good Technology a leading provider of collaboration, security and management services to develop QUE Mail and QUE Calender for the device. Both services will provide un-tethered updates from a range of popular internet services all delivered over Wi-Fi or the already overloaded (thanks to the iPhone) AT&T 3G network. These services are not expected until Q3 2010.

Content can be downloaded from the QUE store which is  powered by Barns and Noble. The company states that there are currently over 1 million ebooks on the store ready for use on the QUE.

The device it's self weighs in at about a pound and measures around 8.5"W x 11"H x .25"D. Two models are available for pre-order, a 4GB Wi-Fi only model and an 8GB Wi-Fi and 3G capable device. The 4GB model can hold about 35,000 documents and costs $649 whereas the 8GB model can hold 75,000 documents and comes in at an even more lofty $799. Both models feature the same 10.5-inch shatter proof plastic screen which has a 944 x 1264 pixel display with 8 levels of grey.

PlasticLogic.com

Skiff Reader

Of the devices presented here the Skiff Reader brings something a little different to the table. Firstly it features the largest e-ink display, standing in at 11.5" with a generous display resolution of 1200 x 1600 pixels. The screen is also fully touch sensitive and can be flexed as it does not use any glass. Skiff point out that their Reader device is the first to feature Metal Foil e-paper, a technology developed by LG. Metal Foil e-paper is said to be more durable than glass as it has a natural tendency to be flexed or warped.

Content can be purchased through the Skiff store and the company has signed a long term agreement with Sprint to provide 3G access to that store from anywhere you can get a Sprint 3G signal. The device also has Wi-Fi connectivity and the battery should be good for about a week of average reading, not bad for such a large, thin device.

The device will be available later in the year according to Skiff and can be purchased from over 1000 Sprint retail stores across the U.S and online at sprint.com. No wording on pricing or availability outside of the U.S has been provided as of yet.

Skiff.com

Virgin Media have announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership with TiVo that will see TiVo developing the next generation Virgin Media TV platform. Virgin Media expect their the new platform to be released in 2010.

The mutually exclusive agreement will see TiVo undertaking the development of a combined television and broadband interface that will power the next generation of Virgin Media HD set-top-boxes (STBs). This will more than likely mean that Virgin Media TV subscribers will get access to TV content via the Internet. The deal will see the company becoming the sole provider of middleware and interface software for Virgin Media's STBs. Virgin Media meanwhile, will in turn become the sole provider of TiVo services and technology in the UK.

Virgin Media say that their next generation platform will provide a superior television experience that will allow users to search and discover content via on-demand and Internet based services. There calling their next platform the "ultimate one-stop-shop for in-home entertainment".

Virgin Media CEO, Neil Berkett greeted the partnership with open arms and said "TiVo's proven track record of innovation, strength of its patented technology and experience in developing best in class user environments, make it an ideal strategic partner for Virgin Media as we move aggressively to bring our next generation TV service to market. The superiority of our fibre optic network combined with TiVo's capabilities, will allow us to offer consumers the most significantly advanced and compelling TV service available in the UK , and we believe will do to the TV market what Virgin Media has done to the high speed broadband market."

TiVo's CEO Tom Rogers echoed the sentiment by saying "This deal underscores TiVo's commitment to expanding its global footprint through strategic alliances with leading international media companies to help them deliver the best in-home entertainment experience for consumers.

We are very excited about this new distribution relationship with the UK's most advanced pay television provider and are particularly proud to have been selected as Virgin Media's core software partner for its next generation DVR-enabled set top boxes and its next generation non-DVR set top boxes. Virgin Media is a true leader in the world of entertainment and their enthusiasm for building the next generation of pay television is an excellent opportunity to put all of TiVo's innovation to work in a product distributed by a world class partner. We believe this international deal affords us a significant subscriber growth opportunity."

In other Virgin Media news, the company has said that it has begun rolling out a new advertising platform to 300,000 homes that will see 30 seconds worth of ads being played before and after certain on-demand content.  Specifically programming from LIVING, Virgin1 and Bravo will be subject to the new system. The new ad platform is proved by SeaChange International’s AdPulse system. In time the new system will be rolled out to every one it would seem and to more programming.

This has come about after close to 55 percent of the 100,000 guinea pig homes across North London that the new adversing platform was tested on,  gave positive feedback for the service. Adverts from L'Oreal (oh the joys of Pro-Tensium and Pro-Retinol A), Microsoft, Sony Ericsson and Kelloggs will appear on the new platform and will be specific to the program being played. So you won't see America's Next Top Model sandwiched between Microsoft adverts, but rather you will see it between L'Oreal ones instead.

Reading between press releases lines, it's a good bet that additional and future adverts will likely come from Cadbury's, COI, Coty, Electronic Arts, John Frieda, LG, Nestle and Unilever.

Yesterday Amazon released new firmware for their ever popular ebook reader, the Kindle. After six months of improvements and testing, Amazon say that the new firmware sees the Kindle 2 and DX models receiving a staggering 85 percent improvement in battery life.

In real terms this means that the Kindle can now last for up to seven days without requiring a recharge when the devices wireless features are turned on - an improvement of three days more Kindle reading. Battery life with the wireless features turned off should still last for up to two weeks; no change.

The firmware will also see the 6 inch Kindle 2 and DX receiving native support for PDF files. Meaning you can upload your own personal PDF files to the Kindle and read them. Previously the Kindle required that you convert the PDFs to Kindles own format. The problem though is that the Kindle lacks the ability to zoom in on PDF files, making most of them unreadable according to Engadget.

To read PDFs in their native format, Kindle users will have to email the PDFs to their Kindle email address or upload them to the device via USB.

Amazon have stated that previous purchasers of the newer Kindle will receive the firmware update via the Kindle's Whispernet wireless service automatically. Native PDF support will also be available for some of the earlier Kindle models, when it becomes available.

Tesco, Britain's largest supermarket chain has stated that through it's joint venture with O2 it will be offering the Apple iPhone to it's Tesco Mobile consumers. The news comes after Vodafone and Orange announced that they would be offering the iPhone to their customers, thus ending O2's exclusivity deal for the iPhone.

Orange have already started selling the iPhone and on its first day over 30,000 customers purchased an Orange iPhone. Vodafone say they will be offering the device in early 2010. According to the BBC, Tesco have stated that the iPhone will be available in time for Christmas.

Tesco Mobile, like Orange and Vodafone will offer both the older iPhone 3G and the latest handset the iPhone 3GS though its Tesco Mobile stores and online through Tesco Direct. Tesco have already got a Tesco Mobile iPhone page where you can register your interest. It is expected that you'll be able to get the iPhone on Pay As You Go (PAYG) and Pay Monthly tariffs.

There is no word yet on pricing, tariffs or data plans but Tesco say that their prices will be "competitive". However we've heard that before from Orange and their prices turned out to be not that much more competitive than O2's, if at all.

If Tesco Mobile does offer competitive pricing it could spark an iPhone price war between all the mobile operators in the UK. After all, Tesco Mobile's premise is to offer value for money by targeting the lower end of the market. Their most expensive pay monthly plan costs £30, that's almost in line with the cheapest offering for an iPhone on Orange or O2.

Source: BBC

Streaming music services are becoming big business, Sky have launched a service called Sky Songs, Google have also launched their own music streaming service. Spotify however remain the big name in this business, at least in Europe and today they have released a mobile client for Symbian based mobile phones after previously releasing clients for both iPhone and Android devices.

The release means that Spotify can now reach a much wider demographic of consumers in the mobile market. Symbian based devices account for about 50% of the smartphone market according to Spotify, which far outnumbers those of either the iPhone or Android. Spotify is now looking to cash in on this fact as it allows them to strike more deals with carriers and provide the client pre-installed on newer handsets when consumers buy a new phone.

Gustav Söderstrom, director of portable solutions at Spotify welcomed the release and said "The launch of Spotify’s Symbian app opens up our mobile music service to potentially millions more music fans across Europe.

Many mid to high-end Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung phone owners might be surprised to realise they can run Spotify on their phones. This takes our mobile music offering to a totally new level."

To use the service you have to be a Spotify Premium subscriber which costs £9.99 per month and for that you get better quality audio, playlist syncing with the desktop client, no adverts and the ability to cache your playlists which allows you to play your music even if you haven't got network coverage in a particular area. It also means that your device won't be constantly pulling data off your carrier's network, thus saving battery life and bandwidth.

Spotify running on various Symbian based Nokia devices

Spotify say that the new client will work on the Nokia 6220 Classic, E71 and 5800 XpressMusic handsets as well as on the the "more popular" Sony Ericsson and Samsung devices such as the recently released Sony Ericsson Satio and Samsung GT-I8910 Omnia HD.

Spotify have provided a webpage that allows you to check if their Symbian client is compatible with your phone. Simply go to www.m.spotify.com from your phone's browser and the page should automatically detect your phone and and tell you how to install the client - if it's compatible. You can also input the details manually should it fail to detect your phone as it did with my Nokia E63.

Failing the above you also also text Spotify and they will send a message back telling you how to get started with the mobile client if it's compatible with your device. Finally Spotify have provided a list of Symbian devices that are compatible with the client. For your convenience they are listed below:

• Nokia 5230
• Nokia 5320 XpressMusic
• Nokia 5530 XpressMusic
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
• Nokia 6220 classic
• Nokia 6710 Navigator
• Nokia 6720 classic
• Nokia 6730 classic
• Nokia E51
• Nokia E52
• Nokia E63
• Nokia E66
• Nokia E71
• Nokia E75
• Nokia N78
• Nokia N82
• Nokia N85
• Nokia N86 8MP
• Nokia N95
• Nokia N95 8GB
• Nokia N96
• Nokia N97
• Samsung GT-I7110
• Samsung i8910 Omnia HD
• Sony Ericsson Satio

YouTube has launched a new section of it's site called 'Shows' that will stream some of Channel 4's most successful programmes for free. Thanks to a partnership between the two companies UK YouTube users will be able to access and view for free, full length episodes of hit shows such as The Inbetweeners, Peep Show, Farther Ted and The IT Crowd to name but a few.

At launch there are approximately 5000 videos on YouTube Shows, of which around 4000 are full length episodes from around 60 partners according to The Guardian. Some other partners who have struck a deal to show their content on YouTube are reported as being the BBC, ITN, Turner Broadcasting, Classic Media and North One.

YouTube says that with its partner's, the number of shows available will increase significantly over the coming months. Channel 4 hopes to have it's full line-up of programming available on YouTube by early 2010. All the shows will be available for viewing free of charge in the UK, however some shows will carry advertising if the owner requires it.

Patrick Walker, YouTube's video partnerships director, said "The shows section of the site will make it easier for users to discover videos from the biggest names in British broadcasting, and help our content partners reach new audiences and generate new revenues,".

After buying YouTube out for over $1.5 billion three years ago Google has not made a penny out of the video sharing site. Google wants the new partnerships to bring a new audience and business model to YouTube and hopes it can provide new avenues of interest for its partners.  By incorporating adverts into videos on YouTube, Google through revenue sharing deals might finally turn YouTube into a profitable business for it's self and provide another method of revenue for it's partners.

Sources: The Guardian, TechRadar